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David Herns opened Farm House Furniture Co. in Dearborn Mo.

As soon as you pick up the receiver on the old-time telephone in David Hearn’s Farm House, you know this is not your ordinary home decor store.

“Mrs. Plump, I know that’s you on the line,” an irritated woman’s voice says. “Tell Mr. Dillinger if he’s got any of those new-fangled union suits to put away a size 42 for me.”

The phone is just one of the ways Lori and David Hearn have created an illusion of an early 1900s shop mixed with some Disney-esque whimsey and Americana-style furniture and accessories. The business is actually split into two buildings that sit across from each other on Main Street in Dearborn, Mo. One looks like a furniture store from 1906. The other is a former hotel that was actually built in 1892 with offices for a bank, barber’s shop and doctor’s office. The ladies’ entrance sign on one side of the old hotel always gets a question or two from those new to the area.

“Women and children weren’t allowed down the hallway because there was drinking and gambling going on in the back,” Mr. Hearn explains. “There were ladies back there, but not the right kind of ladies.”

Dr. Durham and the barber, Bart Davidson, still have offices in the building — or so it appears. On the office door, it reads, “Dr. Durham MD, office calls $1, house calls $2.” And the barber shop advertises haircuts for 50 cents, shaves for 25 cents and painless tooth extractions $2.

They look so authentic that they’ve had a passerby try to get in to see the doctor.

The furniture the Hearns sell has the same illusion. You’ll find a massive double-glass bookshelf you would swear was made at least 100 years ago with the wavy, obviously vintage glass in the doors. The dense wood has a stone-like patina with real aged markings from a saw. And it’s so heavy that it would take four men to lift the thing. Although you might guess it’s an heirloom from some country estate, it’s new, made from old barn flooring, joists and beams. Like most of the furniture at the Farm House, it’s been handcrafted by David Hearn. He’s been building furniture since his first shop class in junior high.

“I try to stay early 1900s with the style,” he says. “That’s when immigrants came over here and we had all of these artisans around. I think a lot of that has been lost, so I like to capture that into the quality of the furniture I make.”

In the hotel building, the furniture is mixed with one-of-a-kind decor items Mr. Hearn has made from architectural salvage, such as a lamp made from a church bannister and an old floor grate. They also have unique holiday and decor items from all over the country, such as “Black Cow Tin.” It’s a black cow lined and riveted with copper, made by a couple in their 70s from Maine using roof tin salvaged from old homes on the East Coast from the early 1880s.

“When you are buying things like that, you are buying art,” Mrs. Hearn says, “but you are also buying American history.”

Surprisingly, building furniture is “therapy” for Mr. Hearn that he does as a side business to his “day” job of graphic design and retail consulting and marketing with Imagination Marketing. That’s why the store is only open part time, from 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. on Wednesdays through Saturdays. It also closes down the last week of October to completely gut the store and refill it for Christmas, which, for the Hearns, starts on Nov. 1. For more information, visit www.visitthefarm house.com.

Lifestyles reporter Sylvia Anderson may be reached at sylviaanderson@npgco.com